Exclusive: paedophile priest's bid for freedom

A NOTORIOUS child sex offender, the former priest Brian
Spillane, has launched a bid to quash his conviction by claiming he faced an
unfair trial.

Spillane, a former chaplain at Bathurst’s St Stanislaus
College, was sentenced to nine years in prison earlier this year for abusing
three girls, one as young as eight, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Fairfax Regional Media can reveal Spillane’s lawyer, Greg
Walsh, has prepared a series of documents outlining why the conviction should
be overturned. The case will be heard in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in
April next year, around the same time the Royal Commission into child sex abuse
will be lifting the lid on decades of crime and cover-up.

“I’ve been a lawyer for 35 years and I don’t think I’ve seen
a more unfair trial in my experience,” he said.

One Spillane victim was the 11-year-old relative of male
students known to Spillane. During court proceedings, it was revealed Spillane
abused her at a north-west NSW country town. Alone together in the kitchen of
her home, Spillane asked the girl to sit on his lap. When she did, he put his
fingers between her legs and touched her vagina. When she jumped away, he
wrapped a hand around her throat and with the other, pulled the girl’s shorts
down and assaulted her again.

The other victims were from Sydney, where the priest worked
before returning to Bathurst in about 1984. One of the offences occurred when
Spillane was in the victim’s bedroom for night-time prayers.

Mr Walsh conceded the national focus on child sex abuse
would sharpen reaction to Spillane’s bid for freedom.

“This appeal will be determined by, probably three, very
experienced judges…I would have every confidence those justices would not be
influenced by the media, they would not be influenced by the current publicity
about the Catholic church and paedophilia,” he said.

“Most members of the public may believe this appeal should
not be upheld because he’s a former priest and he’s been convicted of
paedophile-type offences.

“But I’m sure there are other members of the public…who
subscribe to the view Mr Spillane is entitled to a fair (appeal) and would get
a fair hearing.”

Bathurst police fielded the first complaints about Spillane
and he was charged in 2008. He was convicted in late 2010 but his sentencing
only occurred in April this year because Mr Walsh was attempting to have former
NSW District Court judge Michael Finnane disqualified from presiding over the
case.

Mr Walsh had signed a statutory declaration claiming Judge
Finnane told him at a 2011 social function that paedophiles were “all guilty”
and should be “put on an island and starved to death”.

Judge Finnane denied making the statements and the legal bid
to have him removed was lost.

The alleged comments are one of nearly a dozen grounds for
the appeal.

“The background to (all of) this is you had a judge
presiding over it who had a view that people like Mr Spillane should be put on
an island and starved to death,” Mr Walsh claimed.

“I think that speaks for itself.”

He also claimed a witness in the trial had undergone
hypnosis, which “could have distorted their memory”.

During sentencing proceedings, Judge Finnane said Spillane’s
attacks were “serious, planned and callous”.

“The offender used his position as a priest to gain access
to the homes in which each of his victims lived,” Judge Finnane said

“He was very trusted and the parents of each of the victims
readily gave him access to their daughters because of that trust and the esteem
in which he was held.”

The victim-support group Broken Rites, which has spent
several years probing Spillane’s history, declined to comment.

Spillane has consistently denied the charges brought against
him. Mr Walsh said he was pursuing the appeal pro bono. Routine procedural
steps in the appeal process occurred in September and October and written
submissions were filed last month.

Sexual abuse by staff or members of religious institutions
like boarding houses, as well as state-run schools, is expected to be
scrutinised during the impending Royal Commission announced by Prime Minister
Julia Gillard on Monday.